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High-speed xDSL moves to new lengths

54Mbps at up to 2.8km

A small US firm had successfully tested an ultra-fast broadband technology which could translate into high-speed Internet access for many more people.

New Wheel Technology (NWT), has demonstrated prototype technology, called Cu@OCX, that delivers unidirectional transmission speeds of 54Mbps over a distance of up to 2.8Km, using existing twisted-pair copper telephone cables.

Performance results for the VDSL (Very-High Data-Rate Digital Subscriber Line) prototypes from NWT, which were carried out by independent test engineers at Lucent Technologies, raise the distance limit of high-speed broadband. Firms such as Broadcom have network devices which can work at such speeds, but only for distances around three times less than recorded using NWT's kit.

Over a single twisted pair, VDSL delivers downstream data rates ranging from 13 to 52Mbps and upstream rates ranging from 1.5 to 2.3Mbps. VDSL's operating range is typically limited between 300m and 1,200m and is a much younger technology than ADSL, which means that standards are yet to be finalised and its effectiveness in some environments is unknown. ®